‘TweetyTwelve The Review’: Part 1 – Team GB’s social media performance

With the Olympics done and dusted and that ‘post-party’ gloom in danger of descending, it’s time for a little bit of reflection. As you will know if you’ve been following @TamarUK on Twitter or Facebook these past few weeks, we’ve been monitoring digital data over the course of the London Games – and now is the time to start crunching some numbers.

Over the course of the next five days, we’re going to publish our review of social media and the Olympics including: how our own Team GB athletes fared, how the fans of the countries of the world showed their support, how social media played a part overall in the Games, and of course the big ‘legacy’ question: “What next?”

With national pride currently running high, we turn our attention first of all to the athletes of Team GB. Of the ~540 athletes who made up Team GB, over 70% of them were actively using Twitter before and during the Games – and we kept an eye on every single one. Which of them fared the best between the opening and closing ceremonies? We’ve got the data:

First up, let’s take a look at which athletes gained the most number of followers during the games:

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As you can see, choosing Tom Daley and Jess Ennis as the poster boy and girl of the Games was an excellent choice – both came out the other side with an impressive number of new followers. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that the Top 9 or 10 athletes in this list represent the most memorable faces from Team GB’s performance at the Games.

However absolute number growth probably favours those who are already fairly well-known, so we also looked at who grew the most in percentage terms. Here’s the Top 25 there:

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Whereas the first set of data highlights the increase in followers a lot of the ‘personalities’ enjoyed who were already well-known before the Games, the percentage growth clearly demonstrates what winning a medal can do for your profile if you went into the Games relatively unknown.

Of course growth in Twitter followers is incomparable to winning an Olympic medal – we don’t for a moment think these athletes are patting themselves on the back for their social media ‘achievement’ this morning! But look at any of the tweet streams of any those athletes above and you’ll see they ARE all very keenly aware of their newly raised profiles – and a lot of them seem very touched by the growth in their followers. Social media profile growth will doubtless result in a raised awareness, and support of, their individual sport – and isn’t that what any athlete hopes for?

Tomorrow in Part 2 of ‘TweetyTwelve The Review’ we’ll be taking a look at what the precise effect of winning a medal has on an athlete’s social media profile.